Teaching a senior AP class in the fourth quarter, I allow students to pick a new assigned seat. Knowing these seats will be their assigned seat for the remainder of the quarter, most of the students choose to sit next to their friends. Halfway through the quarter, a confrontation occurs between two students that had previously been very good friends throughout the year
How to Deal:
In this situation it seems that there are only reactive approaches to the situation since it happened after the seats were moved. Here are some options that I would use;
First: - quietly let the two students know that you would like to meet with them after class - alert them to the fact that you are aware that they have had a disagreement. - treat them like adults. Ask them if even though they have had a disagreement would they be comfortable working together on activities in class.
-If yes, then allow them to continue to work together but monitor their interactions.
- If no, then the next day in class announce to the class that you decided to try a new method of seat moving. Use the Popsicle stick method to randomly select students and pair them together. Now the students are getting the chance to know people that they may have not considered working with before. This also solves the friend drama problem in a subtle way and none of the other students need to know what is going on.
How to Deal:
In this situation it seems that there are only reactive approaches to the situation since it happened after the seats were moved. Here are some options that I would use;
First:
- quietly let the two students know that you would like to meet with them after class
- alert them to the fact that you are aware that they have had a disagreement.
- treat them like adults. Ask them if even though they have had a disagreement would they be comfortable working together on activities in class.
-If yes, then allow them to continue to work together but monitor their interactions.
- If no, then the next day in class announce to the class that you decided to try a new method of seat moving. Use the Popsicle stick method to randomly select students and pair them together. Now the students are getting the chance to know people that they may have not considered working with before. This also solves the friend drama problem in a subtle way and none of the other students need to know what is going on.